Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey

This monograph dissects the ideological concepts of native and non-native speakers in a broad variety of communicative settings, with a focus on a number of different languages (European, Asian, African, and Polynesian). It is a compilation of nine ethnographic studies. Each of the five sections is prefaced by an introductory chapter.

Part 1, ‘Setting the stage’, provides the framework through which one can question the assumptions underlying the native-speaker concept. Ch. 1, ‘Investigating “native speaker effects”: Toward a new model of analyzing “native speaker ideologies”’ (15–46) by Neriko Musha Doerr, calls for an analysis of the multidimensional and multilayered character of language acquisition and use in bi- or multilingual discourse communities. Robert Train examines the development of the native speaker concept and language standardization processes in Ch. 2, ‘Toward a “natural” history of the native (standard) speaker’ (47–79).

Additional studies provide nuanced portrayals of multilingual speakers and discourse communities. Part 2, ‘Nation-states’ designs and people’s actions’, begins with a discussion of migrant experiences. Ch. 3, ‘”Native speaker” status on border-crossing: The Okinawan Nikkei diaspora, national language, and heterogeneity’ (83–100) by Michiyo Takato, describes the experiences of reverse migrant families from Latin America. Yuko Okubo explores the mainstream educational opportunities available for ethnic minority groups in Osaka in Ch. 4, ‘The localization of multicultural education and the reproduction of the “native speaker” concept in Japan’ (101–33).

Part 3, ‘Standardizing impulses and their subversions’, exposes the diversity of language standardization process. Victoria J. Baker describes the pressure to learn the standard forms of languages within a multilingual community in Ch. 5, ‘Being “multilingual” in a South African township: Functioning well with a patchwork of standardized and hybrid languages’ (139–60). Ch. 6, ‘Social class, linguistic normativity and the authority of the “native Catalan speaker” in Barcelona’ (161–84) by Susan E. Frekko, presents a micro-study onthe tensions inherent in the standardization of a language and illustrates how the learner’s social status may influence learning outcomes. The final chapter in this section, Ch. 7 ‘Uncovering another “native speaker myth”: Juxtaposing standardization processes in first and second languages of English-as-a-second-language learners’ (185–209) by Neriko Musha Doerr, advocates addressing language standardization issues in English-as-a-second-language classrooms by establishing parallels between the first language and the English variants.

Part 4, ‘Revisiting “competence”’, consists of four chapters. Ch. 8, ‘”We don’t speak Maya, Spanish or English”: Yucatec Maya-speaking transnationals in California and the social construction of comeptence’ by Anne Whiteside (215–32), describes a Californian Mayan migrant community and the construction of their social identity. Using an account of the hiring process,  Ryuko Kubota investigates how  the native speaker status may interact with other social and cultural considerations in Ch. 9, ‘Rethinking the superiority of the native speaker: Toward a relational understanding of power’ (233–48). Ch. 10, ‘Heterogeneity in linguistic practice, competence and ideology: Language and community on Easter Island’ (249–76) by Miki Makihara, examines the convictions surrounding the revitalization of Rapa Nui, spoken on Easter Island. Shinji Sato concludes this section in Ch. 11, ‘Communication as an intersubjective and collaborative activity: When the native/non-native speaker’s identity appears in computer-mediated communication’ (277–94), by examining the practice of online blogging by a second language learner of Japanese in an attempt to create for himself a variety of identities within a more holistic linguistic and social environment.

The volume is concluded in Part 5, ‘Moving forward’. Neriko Musha Doerr and Yuri Kumagai situate the discussions of ideological aspects of language (and speaker) status, power relations, and institutional discursive practices within second language instruction in Ch. 12, ‘Towards a critical orientation in second language education’ (299–318).

This professionally produced volume embraces a wide variety of languages and social contexts of language use. It can be received with enthusiasm by both students and researchers in linguistics, anthropology, and sociology.

Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey

This monograph on language contact in multilingual settings foregrounds the study of communicative processes, and thus breaks with the tendency of language in contact research to prioritize the study of structural-grammatical change. The work comprises thirteen ethnographic studies on a variety of languages used in an equally broad variety of settings. The studies examine transnational and intra-national migration processes and the role of language in maintaining and re-asserting identities.

The book is organized into three parts. Part 1, ‘Scale and multilingualism’, focuses on migration, whether internal or transnational, and multilingual encounters in studies spread across four continents. Part 2, ‘Spatialization, migration and identity’, considers migrants’ narratives about the process of displacement and making a life in new environments. The final section, Part 3, ‘Studying processes and practices across time and space’, examines the interrelatedness of networks and language.

Numerous contributions to this volume analyze language-related issues raised by migration. Joan Pujolar, in Ch. 6, ‘Immigration in Catolonia: Marking territory through language’ (85–106), investigates the role language plays in situating immigrants in a Catalan language teaching classroom within a broader Catalan-Spanish social context. In Ch. 9, ‘”Either” and “both”- The changing concepts of living space among Polish post-communist migrants to the United Kingdom’ (170–87), Aleksandra Galasińska and Olga Kozłowska study the perception of living space and movement as experienced by Polish immigrants to the United Kingdom within a broader context of sociopolitical change in Europe. Gill Valentine, Deborah Sporton, and Katrine Bang Nielson discuss the use of English, Somali, and Dutch among Somali migrant children in Sheffield in Ch. 10, ‘The spaces of language: The everyday practices of young Somali refugees and asylum seekers’ (189–206). The authors illustrate the inter-relatedness of language and identity, and examine how these multilingual individuals have developed different socially constructed identities. Gabriele Budach’s article in Ch. 11, ‘‘Canada meets France’: Recasting identities of Canadianness and Francité through global economic exchanges’ (209–31), investigates the positioning of French Canadian products on the French market and their promotion by transnational service providers who use selected aspects of Quebec culture, customs, and language, to promote their region-specific products.

Other studies focus on social communicative processes and how speakers seek to use language to position themselves in a context of flux and fluidity, often typical in migrants’ lives. Ch. 1, ‘Goffman and globalization: Frame, footing and scale in migration-connected multilingualism’ (19–40) by James Collins and Stef Slembrouck, investigates multilingual encounters within a Mexican migrant family whose members use three languages, shifting between them to position themselves in social contexts. Jie Dong and Jan Blommaert discuss perceptions generated among standard Mandarin speakers of dialectal forms produced by Chinese internal migrants in Ch. 3, ‘Space, scale and accents: Constructing migrant identity in Beijing’ (42–60). The scenarios described illustrate the monoglot ideology of language in which the standard, Putonghua, is viewed as the only language that rightfully extends itself through all sectors of the capital. Cécile Vigouroux, in Ch. 4, ‘A relational understanding of language practice: Interacting timespaces in a single ethnographic site’ (62–83), examines how language choices, both oral and writtenforms, reflect the broader social context within which the users of an internet café (proprietors and clients) situate themselves.

Although it would be a mistake to view globalization as a central theme to this compilation (as suggested by the title), the book presents a collection of ethnographic studies that illuminate the multifarious purposes of language as a social tool among speakers of different status in multilingual settings. It is likely to appeal to both sociolinguists and ethnographers alike.

Reviewed by Taras Shmiher, Ivan Franko National University, L’viv, Ukraine

Translation theory and globalization studies have vast areas of common interest in investigating how global information flows across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Esperança Bielsa and Susan Bassnett suggest an examination of global communication through translation practices, both from a diachronic and synchronic perspective.

Ch. 1, ‘Power, language and translation’ (4–17), presents the role of translation in a global society. The very notion of translation may be regarded in a dual way: it makes communication between cultures possible, but it may also reinforce an unequal power relationship between nations. Factually, not all languages and cultures are of equal power and status. Investigations of these power relations are necessary to this field. The authors attempt to elucidate how and why absolute domestication turns out to be the dominant strategy in news translation.

Ch. 2, ‘Globalization and translation’ (18–31), is devoted to globalization as a sociological phenomenon and its relevance to translation studies. The authors argue that the availability of global information sources (e.g. the World Wide Web) allows for information to overcome spatial barriers and promotes the centrality of knowledge. Some theorists have focused on the global circulation of material and non-material goods, showing its increased profusion and speed during the last few decades. The noted asymmetry between globalization and the production of knowledge and information is directly reflected in translation when examining the directionality of global information flows.

In Ch. 3, ‘Globalization and news: The role of the news agencies in historical perspective’ (32–55), the authors review the function of the media in popularizing images of simultaneity. This influence has been present since the first modern newspapers appeared in mass circulation. News agencies later developed into powerful agents of globalization in the late twentieth century through the incorporation of written, oral, and audio-visual modes of human communication due to technological progress and computer-aided innovations. .

In news practice, translation is not regarded to be separate from other journalistic tasks and is usually performed by a news editor. Ch. 4 ‘Translation in global news agencies’ (56–73) shows how the organization of news agencies has changed to take on a more global presence. The editor has specific skills for providing such translations so as to facilitate communication between different linguistic and cultural communities. Editorial duties now include changing titles and leads, eliminating unnecessary information and adding important cultural information to suit the interests of both local and global audiences.

This theoretical and historical consideration is followed by case analyses. Ch. 5, ‘Journalism and translation: Practices, strategies and values in the news agencies (74–94), examines existing practices and specific strategies as applied in the regional headquarters of Agence France-Presse and Inter Press Service for Latin America in Montevideo. Ch. 6, ‘Reading translated news: An analysis of agency texts’ (95–116), focuses on textual analysis in order to present the nature of translation in news agencies.

The authors question the truthfulness of global news agencies in Ch. 7, ‘Translation and trust’ (117–32). In addition to different textual and communicative conventions, within each country there are enormous divergences of style and expectations that are driven by market and political prospects. The authors investigate the extent to which textual manipulation occurs in the target culture.

‘Appendix: The languages of global news’ (133–47) contains the coverage (e.g. main presentations, discussions, and feedback) of an international symposium on globalization, linguistic difference, and translation in the production of news, held at the University of Warwick in 2004. The book also includes extensive notes, a substantial bibliography, and an index.

Reviewed by Taras Shmiher, Ivan Franko National University, L’viv, Ukraine

Assessment and testing, key notions in translation and interpreting studies, face a range of dilemmas concerning the criteria of equivalence/adequacy, reader response, textual variables, and discourse functions. The present collection of papers, published under the auspices of the American Translators Association, aims at contributing to this field of inquiry. It consists of the editors’ introductory chapter, ‘Introduction: Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice’ (1-10), and three parts that cover eleven articles.

Part 1 is entitled ‘The development of assessment instruments: Theoretical appliations’,  Reviewing literature from translation studies, testing, and second language acquisition, Claudia V. Angelelli in Ch. 2, ‘Using a rubric to assess translation ability: Define the construct’ (13–47), explores sub-components of a rubric to examine the construct of translation competence. In Ch. 3, ‘Moving beyond words in assessing mediated interaction: Measuring interactional competence in healthcare settings’ (49–70), Holly E. Jacobson focuses on the assessment of the community interpreter’s performance in US healthcare environments. The author studies discursive competence in the framework of interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis, and proposes the use of analytic rubrics for assessing interactional competence.

In Part 2, ‘The development of assessment instruments: Empirical approaches’, the researchers analyze empirical methods for developing assessment instruments. In Ch. 3, ‘The perks of norm-referenced translation evaluation’ (73–93), June Eyckmans, Philippe Anckaert, and Winibert Segers have elaborated a norm-referenced method for translation assessment that is independent of subjective conditional  judgments about a source text and oriented at identifying those text fragments that have discriminatory power. Elisabet Tiselius, in Ch. 4, ‘Revisiting Carroll’s scales’ (95–121), presents the assessment of interpreting through the application of scales originally designed by John B. Caroll for machine translation. Mira Kim discusses how meaning-oriented criteria, which are devised using a text analysis approach based on systemic functional linguistics, are applied for assessment in teaching English to Korean translation in Ch. 5, ‘Meaning-oriented assessment of translations: SFL and its application to formative assessment’ (123–57). Assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora are suggested by Brian James Baer and Tatyana Bystrova-McIntyre in Ch. 6, ‘Assessing cohesion: Developing assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora’ (159–83). In this chapter, the authors uncover three features of textual cohesion (e.g. punctuation, sentencing, and paragraphing) that can encourage novice translators to consider the target text in the global way, including various traits above and beyond lexis. Keiran Dunne, in Ch. 7, ‘Assessing software localization: For a valid approach’ (185–222), argues that localization quality assessment should focus less on the localized software and more on the customer’s preferences and expectations. .

Part 3, ‘Professional certification: Lessons from case studies’, deals with professional certification. In Ch. 8, ‘The predictive validity of admission tests for interpreting courses in Europe: A case study’ (225–45), Šárka Timarová and Harry Ungoed-Thomas discuss general principles of admission testing, emphasizing its predictive validity measuring aptitude. The authors argue that ideally, tests should be based on evidence-based research rather than solely the intuition and interpretation of the educator. Karen Bontempo and Jemina Napier surveyed sign language interpreters on their perceptions of the efficacy of interpreter education in Australia in Ch. 9, ‘Getting it right from the start: Program admission testing of signed language interpreters’ (247–95). Based upon their findings, the authors designed an admission test to include elements that are considered to be potentially predictive of performance. The final two chapters,  Ch. 9, ‘Standards as critical success factors in assessment: Certifying social interpreters in Flanders, Belgium’ (297–329) by Hildegard Vermeiren, Jan Van Gucht, and Leentje De Bontridder, and Ch. 10, ‘Assessing ASL-English interpreters: The Canadian model of national certification’ (331–76) by Debra Russell and Karen Malcolm,  highlight professional procedures for assessment and certification.

Two indices of authors and of subjects end this substantial book. A systematic response to the above-mentioned issues from teachers, practitioners, and researchers will advance the discussion to much higher theoretical understanding.

Reviewed by Karen Steffen Chung, National Taiwan University

This book investigates whether the plural forms of brains (e.g. She’s got the brains in the family.) and works (e.g. The works of my watch were all gummed up.) are inflectional forms of the singular brain and work. It seems that the answer is anything but obvious. What follows is a proposal of a universal basis for examining linguistic number.

In Part 1, entitled ‘A typology of lexical plurals’, Paolo Acquaviva reviews general properties of lexical plurals. A distinguishes lexical plurals from inflectional plurals in Ch. 2, ‘Varieties of non-inflectional plurals’ (11–48). First, he outlines three things lexical plurals are not: irregular plurals (e.g. children), semantically irregular plurals, (e.g. brothers or brethren), and pluralia tantum (i.e. words that exist only in the plural, such as clothes). The author further notes that lexical, as opposed to inflectional, plurals in general lack obligatoriness, generality, determinism, and semantic opacity. In Ch. 3, ‘Plurals and morphological lexicality’ (49–78), he argues that number is an inherent, and not context-determined, characteristic of every number-inflected noun. That is, number is a gradient rather than absolute phenomenon because some plurals are more lexicalized than others. Ch. 4, ‘The meaning of lexical plurality’ (79–120), discusses the semantic property of lexical plurals. A cites the existence of singularia tantum and pluralia tantum forms to show that nouns often do not have the full range of the number values made available by the grammar.

Part 2, ‘Four case studies’, examines exceptional plural marking in four languages: Italian, Irish, Arabic, and Breton. In Ch. 5, ‘Italian irregular plurals in -a’ (123–61), A analyzes the case of plural -a as opposed to -i marking in Italian. For example, the singular osso ‘bone’ has two plural forms: ossi ‘bones (disconnected)’ and ossa ‘bones (whole/connected)’. In this case, it seems as though the –i plural means the object should be viewed as independent components whereas the -a plural, an idiosyncratic lexical plural, functions as a collective plural. Ch. 6, ‘Irish counting plurals’ (162–94), focuses on plural nouns that are used after numbers three to ten. In Ch. 7, ‘Arabic broken plurals’ (195–233), A concludes that while somehow lexical due to their unpredictability, broken plurals are entirely within the inflectional number system. Ch. 8, ‘The system of Breton plural nouns’ (234–65), examines the inflectional and derivational plurals in Breton which may share the same morphological realization (235). One important conclusion of this work is that in many cases, ‘…stem-internal plurality has a privileged relation with non-canonical readings that are sensitive to the meaning of the lexical base’ (269).

Lexical plurals is a deep, systematic, and thorough treatment of plural marking in languages. It is refreshingly free of cumbersome formalisms and provides plenty of relevant data. Following A’s approach, some significant parts of linguistic number will be non-deterministic and will fall into multiple linguistic categories (i.e. lexical, morphological, or syntactic), possibly creating a new sub-area of morphology. His results should certainly be incorporated into future works on morphology and number. This rich resource will be of particular interest to anyone working on linguistic number, while also being an exemplary model of carefully constructed and persuasive linguistic argument.

Reviewed by Daniel W. Hieber, Rosetta Stone

The newest edition of George Yule’s widely-used textbook remains an excellent introduction to linguistics. In contrast to the data-driven, hands-on approach of such texts as Language files (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007), this book focuses on the conceptual. Chapters are typically organized around important terminology, so that each term receives its own section, and the table of contents resembles a vocabulary list. Y briefly explains each concept without too much detail, and his writing is lucid, concise, and easy to read.

The book begins with chapters on language origins (Ch. 1) and primate communication (Ch. 2), including a discussion of the defining properties of language. Y then moves into the core of linguistics: phonetics (Ch. 3), phonology (Ch. 4), morphology (Ch. 6), syntax (Ch. 8), semantics (Ch. 9), and pragmatics (Ch. 10). He includes chapters on prescriptivism and traditional grammar (Ch. 7) and word-formation and neologisms (Ch. 5).

The second half of the book covers other major subfields in linguistics, including discourse analysis (Ch. 11), neurolinguistics (Ch. 12), first and second language acquisition (Chs. 13–14), sign language (Ch. 15), orthography (Ch. 16), and diachronic linguistics (Ch. 17). Coverage of sociolinguistics includes separate chapters on regional variation (Ch. 18) and social variation (Ch. 19), and the final chapter discusses language, culture, and linguistic relativity (Ch. 20). Each chapter includes study questions, tasks, discussion topics, and topically arranged lists of sources for further reading.

This edition includes a number of improvements, most notably replacing the appendix with a freely downloadable ninety-seven-page online study guide that gives interesting in-depth answers to all of the study questions and tasks in the book, with fully-cited sources. The website also includes all figures and illustrations, which most instructors should find useful.

This edition is better organized than its predecessors into sections and subsections, and it gives greater emphasis to data analysis. There are twenty new sections and fifty new end-of-chapter tasks, including expanded discussions of language origins, text messaging, and kinship terminology. The expanded tasks are an excellent launching point for further investigation and term papers, challenging the student to consult outside sources and conduct independent research.

Lamentably, this edition lacks any discussion of linguistic typology or language endangerment, and the chapter on syntax limits itself to phrase structure rules and basic generative syntax. Interestingly, Ch. 2 fails to discuss recursion as a property of language. Finally, by avoiding broader theoretical questions (e.g. do language universals exist?), the book remains practical enough for an introductory class.

Overall, this textbook is an excellent overview of the central topics in linguistics and how linguists study language, and this edition is a notable improvement over previous ones. The student will come away from it with a solid understanding of basic linguistic terminology and an appreciation for the breadth of topics that linguistics has to offer.

Reviewed by Ilya Yakubovich, Moscow State University

The Iguvine Tablets (Tabulae Iguvinae), the largest cache of extant Umbrian texts, constitute our main source of knowledge of the Umbrian language, a member of the Italic group of the Indo-European language family. Altogether nine tablets, two now lost, were found in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium) in 1444. They deal with the administration of the local pagan cults in the third through first centuries BC. The decipherment of the Iguvine tablets began easily enough thanks to the relatively close relationship between Umbrian and Latin, but many passages still have not been fully elucidated. By far the most obscure are Tablets 3 and 4, which contain a continuous set of instructions for the rites of the deities Puemun and Vesuna. The main purpose of this book is to treat these tablets anew using combinatory and etymological methods and ritual comparisons. Michael Weiss, who combines thorough training in comparative Indo-European linguistics with expertise in Latin philology, is ideally suited to this task.

The book is organized like a detective story. The bulk of it (29–431) is divided into sections that follow the sequence of ritual acts prescribed in Tablets 3 and 4. The treatment of each act begins with a provisional translation of the corresponding passage that leaves items of disputed meaning untranslated. W then addresses the conflicting viewpoints of earlier scholars and discusses his preference for one of the interpretations or suggests his own solution. The discussion of particularly complicated philological problems is relegated to a series of excurses. A cohesive translation of Tablets 3 and 4 reflecting W’s interpretation is provided only at the end (433–39), which readers are invited to compare with the Latin translation of Giacomo Devoto (439–41). W concludes with a brief exposition of his philological findings (441–43).

This book is intended for Indo-Europeanists and classical philologists. Most professional readers will find it most helpful to read it not as a mystery story but as a textual edition, beginning with W’s close reading of Tables 3 and 4 and turning to the preceding essays for philological commentary. An alternative strategy fitting for some Indo-Europeanists would be to browse through the detailed indices and turn to the essays for items of interest. For example, scholars working on Hittite may find the discussion useful of the possible relationship between Umbrian supa ‘intestines’ and Hittite suppi– ‘sacred’, ^UZUsuppa ‘taboo-meat’. Supporting W’s skepticism towards this etymology is new evidence that Hitt. suppi– is a non-Indo-European loanword (Thomas Zehnder, Die hethitischen Frauennamen, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010, 5–8).

Reviewed by Eitan Grossman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

One question and two theses are at the heart of Bohumil Vykypěl’s polemical essay. The question is the relation between contemporary functionalist linguistics and the Prague School (short answer: not much). The first thesis is that there is little novelty in contemporary functionalist linguistics. In V’s view, Prague School writings have been ignored or misunderstood by ‘empirical functionalists’, his term for linguists such as Joan Bybee, Bernard Comrie, William Croft, Talmy Givón, and Martin Haspelmath. The second thesis is that empirical functionalist criticisms of structuralism have mistakenly conflated American and European schools of structuralist linguistics in framing (European) structuralism and functionalism as incompatible.

This essay is divided into eleven brief sections, most several pages long, followed by endnotes and bibliographical references. V proposes that empirical functionalists might profit from the work of the Prague School (Ch. 1), which does not fit functionalist stereotypes of structuralism since European structuralists do not hold the ‘Saussurean dogmas’ (arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, langue vs. parole, synchrony vs. diachrony) in a simplistic fashion (Ch. 2). A recurring theme (and the topic of Ch. 4) is that many of the ideas presented as novel by empirical functionalists were earlier proposed by Prague School linguists. Ch. 3 treats the Prague notions of the flexible stability of language, synchronic dynamism, and the distinction between the center and periphery of language systems. Ch. 5 shows that functionalist approaches to the relationship between reality and language echo earlier structuralist views.

Ch. 6 questions the use of the term ‘typology’ by functionalists, as well as their separation of description and explanation. In Ch. 7, V situates the Prague School vis-à-vis the Neogrammarians. V claims that empirical functionalists are ‘non-functional functionalists’ in Chs. 8 and 9. In Ch. 10, V urges functionalists to be both structuralist and functionalist. Ch. 11 concludes the essay with some ways in which empirical functionalist work might interest or benefit Prague School scholars.

Most of the argumentation amounts to referring to earlier work by Prague School scholars. V does not confront empirical functionalism on theoretical or empirical grounds, but rather highlights the fact that many linguists, regardless of affiliation, have developed functionalist approaches. Moreover, V’s critical approach applies to his own narrative as well: Prague School scholars were not the first to propose many of the ideas that they espoused, and the view of nineteenth century linguistics found in this book is as one-dimensional as V finds contemporary treatments of European structuralism to be.

If we look beyond the author’s rhetoric, however, some of his points are valid. European structuralism is more heterogeneous than it is sometimes made out to be and often differs significantly from American structuralism. Moreover, V is right to point out that for many linguists, especially those occupied with language description, structuralist and functionalist models are compatible in theory and practice.

The principal contribution of this book is in drawing connections between different functionalist traditions that were separated by all-too-common ruptures in the ‘bibliographical chain’.

Reviewed by Reda A. H. Mahmoud, Minya University, Egypt

This illuminating thirteen-chapter volume gives an authoritative stance of current research on pragmatics in second language acquisition of Japanese. A concise forward by Gabriele Kasper reviews the extensive history of Japanese interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) and its contribution to general ILP.

In the first chapter, Naoko Taguchi sketches the study of Japanese pragmatics and its influence on Japanese pedagogy and curriculum. Developing a framework of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, she introduces empirical studies of the following topics: honorifics, speech style, reactive tokens, sentence-final particles, speech acts of various types, formulaic utterances, and indirect expressions. In Ch. 3, Dina R. Yoshimi surveys the literature on Japanese pragmatics, focusing on theoretical and methodological factors that shape the treatment of Japanese pragmatics in Japanese as a second language (JSL) and Japanese as a foreign language (JFL).

In the first experimental study in pragmatic competence, Kazuto Ishida investigates the pragmatic development of six beginning level Japanese learners handling the formal/informal speech-level markers desu (nominal/adjectival copula) and masu (auxiliary verb used in verbal ending) in different contexts. Keiko Ikeda conducts a task-situation study to examine qualitatively and quantitatively the use of honorifics in emails and telephone conversations by adult advanced Japanese learners. The learners use various linguistic and non-linguistic resources to project various styles of deference and demeanor in these two tasks.

Noriko Ishihara and Elaine Tarone explore the link between adult learners’ subjectivity and their pragmatic use in Japanese as a second language (L2) in a case study of how accommodation and resistance reflect on perceived L2 pragmatic norms. Using telephone message and role play tasks as measurements, Yumiko Tateyama focuses on the use of request strategies in teaching to investigate the effect of instruction on the pragmatic competence of learners of JFL. Takafumi Shimizu compares the production of three compliment responses (negative, positive, and avoidance strategies) by American learners as JSL and JFL to explore the influence of the learning context on L2 pragmatic realizations.

Megumi Kawate-Mierzejewska studies request-refusal sequences in telephone conversations. The study reveals that Japanese and American students pursue different strategies of request and refusal during interactions. Akiko Hagiwara adopts a pragmatic comprehension approach to reveal how first language (L1) and L2 speakers of Japanese comprehend three types of literal and non-literal utterances in order to understand the underlying mechanisms of utterance comprehension. Naoko Taguchi examines three types of indirect meanings of opinion and refusal to see how JFL students of different levels use the knowledge of pragmalinguistic forms and sociolinguistic norms to interpret speakers’ intentions.

Takafumi Utashiro and Goh Kawai study verbal and non-verbal reactive tokens (RTs) or ‘back-channeling’ and propose an instructional syllabus of RTs that reflects the levels and order of instructions for learners of Japanese. In her study of native Japanese and American learners of Japanese, Tomomi Kakegawa investigates the use of Japanese sentence-final particles in email correspondence with native speakers. Individual variations in email exchange point to a positive outcome in pragmatic learning. Finally, Junko Mori reviews the development of Japanese ILP and clarifies current controversies in second language acquisition and general applied linguistics research.

Reviewed by Angela Tan, University of California, Los Angeles

Traditional conversational analysis (CA) largely focused on English. Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives brings together analyses from a variety of contexts, settings, and languages. While still very much situated in the framework of CA, this volume suggests that variations and similarities across languages are due not only to differences in language structures but also in cultures.

The book is divided into five sections. The first section consists of the editor’s introduction, including transcription conventions. The second section deals with repair and issues beyond repair. In Ch. 2, Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu demonstrates that two Mandarin repair initiations resemble English repair initiations. They also serve to display stances, particularly of affiliation or disaffiliation, with question-intoned repeats intensifying nonalignment between speakers.

In Ch. 3, Barbara Fox, Fay Wouk, Makoto Hayashi, Steven Fincke, Liang Tao, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Minna Laakso, and Wilfrido Flores Hernandez look at initiation repair in the same turn from a crosslinguistic perspective involving Bikol, Sochiapam Chinantec, Finnish, Indonesian, and Mandarin.  They find not only substantial variations but also universals: e.g. monosyllabic words are recycled to achieve a beat of delay and multisyllabic words afford speakers opportunities to initiate repair before completing the word. In Ch. 4, Maria Egbert, Andrea Golato, and Jeffrey D. Robinson use data from English and German to suggest that repair initiations are produced with final-falling or slightly rising intonation by hearers.

The third section looks at various aspects of response in conversation. In Ch. 5, Anna Lindstrom examines the projection of nonalignment in Swedish conversations, e.g. use of ‘curled ja’. This projection allows recipients to recast their utterances to attain alignment. In Ch. 6, Trine Heinemann looks at how Danish speakers orient to knowledge in conversations, particularly two practices where recipients treat a question as inapposite since the questioner has failed to consider prior knowledge. In Ch.7, Federico Rossano, Penelope Brown, and Stephen C. Levinson investigate gaze behavior in conversation and demonstrate that it is contingent on culture. Additionally, it is found that the questioner does more gazing than the recipient, which departs from previous analyses that take recipient gazing as a display of attentiveness. In Ch. 8, Makoto Hayashi and Kyung-eun Yoon show how response tokens in Japanese are primarily speakers’ activities and not recipient activities.

Section 4 deals with action formation and sequencing. In Ch. 9, Marja-Leena Sorjonen and Auli Hakulinen discuss alternative ways of constructing agreement to an assessment in Finnish, such as subject-initial responses and responses containing a subject pronoun. In Ch. 10, Jack Sidnell looks at the employment of if by speakers of Caribbean English as a preface to next-turn repeats and how it gives speakers opportunities to negotiate ensuing conversation. In Ch. 11, Galina B. Bolden examines the use of the Russian discourse particle –to to manage contiguity breaks, where an utterance advancing a delayed course of action is not contiguous with the immediately-preceding one.

In Ch. 12, Emanuel A. Schegloff concludes the book by giving insight into the prospects, potential problems, and possibility of comparative analysis in CA. This volume stands at the forefront of CA research and is highly recommended for scholars of this and related disciplines.